THE DEVIL I TAMED

The fire in his chamber had long since died out.

But Nate lay awake, eyes fixed on the carved canopy above his bed, tracing invisible lines in the wood grain like they might answer the questions clawing at his chest.

The room was cold. Too cold.

Jake was gone.

Not far—he could still feel the faintest hum of their bond if he focused hard enough. Like a heartbeat three rooms away. Like a scent that clung to your shirt long after someone left.

> You asked for silence. Why does it feel like punishment now?

He hadn't rejected him. He'd just needed space.

But now the silence screamed.

He turned over, fingers digging into the velvet sheets. His body ached with exhaustion, but his mind refused to rest. Every whisper Jake had spoken still clung to the walls, curling in the shadows like perfume.

He could still feel the ghost of Jake's presence against his neck.

Still taste that sharp, sultry voice in the back of his thoughts.

Still remember how it made him feel.

Seen.

And that's what made it so much worse.

> "He might have killed Eric."

Nate closed his eyes.

He didn't want to remember. But the memory came anyway—dragging itself from the dark.

---

Two days after Eric's death

Royal Garden, Midday

Nate sat beneath the frost-heavy willow trees, cloaked in grief, his fingertips tracing the edge of Eric's favorite ring—now his.

"Can I sit with you?"

The voice had been soft, sweet. It belonged to Natalia, Eric's wife of six years. Her gown was mourning black, but her beauty never dulled. She carried herself like she was born of winter—elegant and quiet, but with a bite beneath the calm.

She sat beside Nate without waiting for permission.

He didn't look at her. "You should be resting."

"So should you," she replied. "But I know the look on your face. You're asking the same question I did."

Nate finally turned to her, his expression guarded. "What question?"

"Who killed him."

The wind brushed past them like breath.

Nate didn't answer. Natalia reached into her sleeve and pulled out a small, ivory-wrapped note. She handed it to him.

Nate opened it slowly. The ink had been smudged at the bottom—as if someone's fingers had trembled before sealing it.

It was in Eric's handwriting.

> "I've decided to reject the demon. I don't trust it. Something in its eyes… it knows too much. Feels too much. I'll not bind myself to a thing that watches me like a man starving."

> "If something happens to me, tell Nate to look closer. Demons do not mourn, they wait."

Nate's chest went still.

Natalia's voice was barely above a whisper. "He sent me that the night before he died."

He stared at the letter. A hundred thoughts scattered through his mind.

"Jake," he whispered.

She nodded once.

"I never saw it," she said, voice trembling. "But I felt it. There was something wrong with that creature from the moment they summoned it. It looked at Eric like… like he was prey, not master."

Nate could barely breathe.

Natalia touched his hand gently.

"I don't know if it was Jake. But I do know this: your brother feared him. And he never feared anything."

---

Now

Present, Nate's chamber

Nate sat up sharply in bed, gasping as if he'd been underwater.

His heart pounded. The air felt thick. That letter. Those words.

He hadn't looked at it since.

He couldn't.

Because if it were true—if Jake really had—

Then everything about the bond they now shared was twisted, cursed, doomed.

But then…

Why did his chest ache like this?

Why did he miss him?

Why did Jake's silence feel more painful than the idea of him being a killer?

He stood, bare feet pressing against cold marble, walking slowly to the tall mirror near the hearth. He stared at himself—messy hair, dark circles under his eyes, royal mark glowing faintly beneath the skin of his collarbone.

He touched the mark with two fingers.

It pulsed softly. Jake's presence, faint and distant, still tethered.

> He should terrify me.

But he didn't.

> He should disgust me.

But he didn't.

> He might've killed Eric.

And still, Nate's hands curled inwards, fists shaking—not from hate, but from conflict.

From the maddening storm inside his chest where grief and desire had become impossible to tell apart.

---